My possibly mistaken guess is that fruits such as strawberries and
blackberries spread the seeds of the plant via bird droppings. Can anyone
answer my crazy question about the fruit of the avocado? What is it for? How
is the seed propagated in the wild? What is the fruit for?

(Excuse me for asking something slightly off topic.)

"Gyve Turquoise" wrote:

My possibly mistaken guess is that fruits such as strawberries and
blackberries spread the seeds of the plant via bird droppings. Can anyone
answer my crazy question about the fruit of the avocado? What is it for? How
is the seed propagated in the wild? What is the fruit for?

(Excuse me for asking something slightly off topic.)

I'm guessing you mean, biologically, why grow the avocado fruit, what
advantage in nature does it give the plant?

What is the prevailing reasoning why any plants wrap their seeds in
attractive sweet edible fruits? Is the common thinking that seeds
survive digestive tracts and are carried to a new place?


I found this fact interesting from
http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/avocado.html:
"Seeds may sprout within an avocado when it is over-mature" they can
actually sprout inside the fruit.

DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)

On Sun, 18 May 2003 10:11:53 +0900, "Gyve Turquoise"
wrote:

My possibly mistaken guess is that fruits such as strawberries and
blackberries spread the seeds of the plant via bird droppings. Can anyone
answer my crazy question about the fruit of the avocado? What is it for? How
is the seed propagated in the wild? What is the fruit for?

(Excuse me for asking something slightly off topic.)


I suppose the first question is "what did an avocado look like before
it was bred for human consumption". Assuming that it must have had
some (probably much smaller) proportion of its volume devoted to the
"meat" surrounding the seed, it was still there for the same reason.
It provides a very calorie-packed food source for an animal. The
animal would be expected to pick the fruit and carry it to a safer
place to consume it. The seed would be dropped with a chance to
sprout some distance from the parent plant (less competition). The
bargain is really not that much different from those struck by
nectar-filled flowers and their pollenators.

In article , B.Server
says...
It provides a very calorie-packed food source for an animal. The
animal would be expected to pick the fruit and carry it to a safer
place to consume it. The seed would be dropped with a chance to
sprout some distance from the parent plant (less competition).

And dropped with a nourishing packet of fertilizer as well :-).

--
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president or that we
are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic
and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
Teddy Roosevelt

On Sun, 18 May 2003 10:11:53 +0900, "Gyve Turquoise"
wrote:

My possibly mistaken guess is that fruits such as strawberries and
blackberries spread the seeds of the plant via bird droppings. Can anyone
answer my crazy question about the fruit of the avocado? What is it for? How
is the seed propagated in the wild? What is the fruit for?

The function of the avocado is...guacamole!

Seriously, it's like any other seed. designed to produce new avocado
plants. Birds aren't the only animals that eat fruit and veg and
spread seeds, you know.

Paleontologists and botanists theorize that the ancestral avocado
(which had an even bigger pit (!) and very thin flesh) was dispersed
by prehistoric megafauna. Think giant ground sloths. You'd need
something that big to be able to eat one whole and pass the seed.
Once the ground sloths were gone, its yumminess ensured its continued
propagation by man.

Not everything extant still has its original distributor, hee hee hee.

Monique Reed
Texas A&M

Frogleg wrote:

On Sun, 18 May 2003 10:11:53 +0900, "Gyve Turquoise"
wrote:

My possibly mistaken guess is that fruits such as strawberries and
blackberries spread the seeds of the plant via bird droppings. Can anyone
answer my crazy question about the fruit of the avocado? What is it for? How
is the seed propagated in the wild? What is the fruit for?

The function of the avocado is...guacamole!

Seriously, it's like any other seed. designed to produce new avocado
plants. Birds aren't the only animals that eat fruit and veg and
spread seeds, you know.

Monique Reed writes:
Paleontologists and botanists theorize that the ancestral avocado
(which had an even bigger pit (!) and very thin flesh) was dispersed
by prehistoric megafauna. Think giant ground sloths. You'd need
something that big to be able to eat one whole and pass the seed.

In general, the dispersion of seed needn't involve it being swallowed,
surviving the digestive passage, and being dispersed in faeces. All you
need is that something pick up the fruit, move away from the parent tree
and discard the seed undamaged. A dog will do this; most love avocados.
I expect there would have existed South American forest floor dwellers
that could be relied on to perform this action without necessarily having
to swallow the seed!

Also, AFAIK, the avocado fruit does not ripen on the tree, and so is
unlikely to be attractive to birds or animals while it hangs on the
branch. The fruit ripens only after it has separated from the tree, so
it may have evolved in conjunction with a forest floor dwelling mammal
that provided the avocado with reliable dispersal.

Something in favour of growing your own avocados: you don't experience
a glut of fruit, just pick some a few days before you need them, let them
ripen while leaving the rest of the fruit hanging on the tree for later.
--
John Savage (news reply email invalid; keep news replies in newsgroup)